Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez has launched a wide-ranging diplomatic offensive to assert her country's claims to the islands, known in Spanish as Las Malvinas. She is due to speak in New York in front of the UN's decolonialisation committee where she is expected to re-assert her country's claim to the islands.

“The Argentinean position is fairly well rehearsed. We disagree with it.

"Because for us the enduring principle is the one of self-determination. It's the principle that applies in Britain so that we can decide our own political future in Britain.

"And of course ironically, it wasn't the case 30 years ago, but it is the case today that that is a principle that applies in Argentina as well," Mr Browne said.